Evaluation- Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the beginning of our project we each did individual research into different film trailers and decided to pin point the standard conventions of teaser trailers so that we can use these as a basis for our film. This also revealed the successful ways in which film trailers worked.

I then went on to do some deeper research into the horror film genre and the standard forms of a horror film teaser trailer. I discovered that horror film trailers often start off with slow paced shots and a range of camera angles to obscure the protagonist and build suspense within the audience and to reach a frightening climax at the end of the trailer which is what is needed to connect with the audience revealing not too much to them but enough to entice them to want to view the entire film. Our trailer begins with a long distant shot across the classroom focusing on our teacher giving the assignment. This as an establishing shot works well as it begins with a narrative for the audience to follow and begins to introduce them to the story line without giving too much away. Our trailer begins very slow paced and builds suspension.

Film magazine

Film magazine deconstruction

Film magazine front cover destruction from chloeanne94

Poster

Film Poster deconstruction

Film poster deconstruction from chloeanne94

My own images deconstruction

Flat plans for film poster

 

FINAL TRAILER

Here is out final trailer for the film Exodus. We took on board all the constructive criticism we received from the focus groups and from our teacher and adjusted our films to what was the most successful within the audience.

Final draft trailer and focus group

Here is our final draft of our film trailer ready to reveal to our focus group. We gathered as a group and discussed what we liked about each others film trailers and what we thought were weaknesses and didn't want to involve in our film. Together we decided that Bronte's film trailer was the most successful as the transitions were effective, the clips were arranged in a way that wasn't linear yet wasn't so far out that the audience couldn't somprehend what was going on.
We felt that the music was too slow and not exciting to keep the audience on the edge therefore decided to import a file that we discovered on the internet where the music raises at the point of suspense.

Own trailer

Here is my trailer that I created myself. I then took this and discussed the strengths and weaknesses and what we could incorporate into the chosen trailer.
Strengths: Smooth transitions.
                 Good 180 degree angles.
                 Dark effects.
Weaknesses: Word titles in the wrong places. 
                       Black and white needs to be consistent or not in the film.

New storyboard

These are my updated storyboards. We sat together and discussed the arrangement of the updated trailer taking on board everything that our focus group and our teacher had said to improve. We made the narrative less abstract and re-arranged the order of the clips so that it would be easier to comprehend. This story we felt had more of a narrative however it wasn't linear which is what we wanted. We added in some image of words to flash up so that the audience can follow the trailer almost like a story is being told.  

Teacher feedback

As well as our focus group we got our teacher to view our initial trailer in which she gave us some constructive critisism.

There were quite a few things that needed to be improved for our film trailer to be successful.
We felt that the storyboard we used was quite linear so decided to change the initial shot to the clip of us walking into the forest approaching the 'girl'. When viewing this our teacher felt that it was too random. We needed to use a different shot so that it would give the audience some kind of introduction to the narrative of the film and so that it wouldn't be completely abstract. As well as this part of someone's ear came into view of the shot at the side of the camera which took away the focus from the scary character which is what we wanted the audience to really look at. It was also said that the camera was too wobbly and that we needed to incorporate the idea that we were filming by using a tripod. Also the jittering of the camera made it harder to focus on certain things. The scene in which Nusrat and I are talking both of us aren't completely in the shot and we kept turning our backs to the camera. Once again this made it hard to focus on us as we weren't still and didn't seem involved, we weren't connecting with the audience by using our dialect to grab their attention. The dialect also needed to be louder and clearer so that the audience could hear what we were saying. As well as this the ending was too linear, as characters in horror film trailers are often silent and mysterious and aren't revealed in the teaser trailers however our ending was almost like the ending of a film and our teacher felt that she should be silent. Like our focus group it felt that more narration was needed so we thought about incorporating a narrator to speak over the film or even adding in words to flash up in between clips to guide the audience through what's going on. Another thing that we had to change was the music, after hearing it in the film it became to soft and innocent and wasn't striking enough to make the audience feel uneasy.

Focus group

We gathered a group of people from our 6form to sit and watch our film so far and to give us feeback on particular parts that they thought worked well and the parts of the film that they didn't particularly like and thought that we could improve. Here are their thoughts.

Stephanie Woodberry, 18
Good points: She thought that the music was quite eerie and that it worked well.
She also felt that it was jumpy and that added to the mystery affect.

Bad points: She felt that when Nusrat and I are talking it's too sudden between that clip and the next shot.
She also felt that the trailer itself was quite short and very confusing and that to improve that we could use some narration to guide the audience.

Liam Mulkerrins: 17
Good points: He particularly liked the panoramic view and thought that worked well. He also liked the zoom effect that we had sometimes.

Bad points: He thought that we could make the clips darker and maybe add some effects to it.
He also thought that we should have less echoing noises and that the audio of us speaking should be louder.

Nikki Robinson: 18
Good points: She really liked the make up and costume of the character and the scream at the end of the trailer.
Bad points: She also felt that the trailer had too many cuts and it was too fast in between.

Kayleigh Wood: 18
Good points: She liked the music and thought that it was innocent yet connoted an eeriness and also really liked the newspaper clipping and thought it made it all the more realistic. She also found the way in which Zuzie moved really interesting and very uneasy.
Bad points: Unlike others she felt that the music should stand out more at the end to draw the audience in and hype it up. Like Liam she felt that the trailer should be darker and have an effect. An improvement she had suggested is that we should make the newspaper clipping longer.

Draft trailer

Here is our initial draft trailer of the film. We intended for the filming to be influenced by Oren Peli in which he uses the camera angles from a perspective as though the characters however we felt that the camera angles we used were too wobbly and weren't clear enough.

Panning shot

This is our panning shot of the entrance of the forest. The problem that we had was that where we had to go straight after school in order for us to get this done, it was quite light still. The effect that we wanted to have was an eerie, uneasy feeling for the audience. However, there could still be things done to it during editing that could make it darker and give that effect.

Establishing shot

This was going to be our initial establishing shot that we had decided for the storyboard. We felt that by putting this at the beginning of the sequence it would let the audience in on the narrative and give them some kind of insight into what the film was about. However after negotiating we felt that this wasn't a strong enough entrance and didn't give that power and excitement that we wanted the audience to feel.

Music

For the music choice, we wanted to have something quite eerie, like children laughing or something that portrays innocence as we wanted to keep that consistent. We researched into 70's vinyl songs and quite liked the idea of a scratched record.

We researched on Youtube into 70's records to see if we could download any scratched cd's or old recordings.
We found a selection of songs:
The beach boys- wouldn't it be nice- This song wasn't powerful enough for us. The chime at the beginning we thought would work well, however it felt a bit too jolly and connoted a cheeriness.
The beatles- Here comes the sun- Once again, this particular track connoted a happiness to the audience which wasn't what we wanted as we wanted a subtle kind of happiness that would portray innocence but create it sub-consiously.
John Lennon - Imagine This audio of this song was the opposite. This song was too sad and the track was too fast for what we wanted.
Elvis Pressley - Love me tender- We particularly liked this song, the beat was good and the speed of the song was a good length for what we had planned. We needed just the audio for this song so that we could play it over the teaser trailer as non-diegetic sound.
In the final decision, Bronte had remembered that she owned music box that playedLove me tender by Elvis Pressley. This was perfect as we could choose the length in which it was played so that it could go very slowly and make an uneasy kind of sound.